New Orleans Baby!

French Quarter

That is the common term here in New Orleans' French Quarter "how you doin baby!" And apparently if my career as a designer ever goes south I have been offered a job as a dancer at an undisclosed establishment...when asked if I was local and if I danced...I replied NOT LOCAL AND DON'T DANCE!...Oh my....this place needs some out reach!!

We stopped in at a recommended spot and had a great breakfast... Joey was our entertaining host...gold tooth glistening, he served up laughter and smiles! Time for a stroll. The streets were fairly quiet on an early Monday...the broken sidewalks were getting watered down from the weekend festivities so the smell of Lysol, stale booze and urine wafted in the air...mmmm.... just what one needs on a sunny morning to wake the senses! The architecture was quite remarkable, colourful Creole Cottages, American Townhouses, Raised Center-Hall Villas, Shotgun Houses (no shotguns on the walls..it comes from the saying that if one fired a shotgun through the front door the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out the back door, just long narrow homes. As you are taxed on the width of your home as well as the height, in New Orleans, these type of homes keep the taxes down) and Double-Gallery Houses.

We spent the afternoon in a great coffee shop, Antoine's Annex, catching up on some work. Later in the afternoon we headed out to find some authentic Cajun style cookin'. We met a couple that had spent their honeymoon in New Orleans 40 years ago and come back every year to celebrate...nice people. They recommended that we try The Pralines...a local restaurant just outside of the French Quarter that is more local inhabited than tourists. I had the Jambalaya and greens (first time with the greens...not bad tasted like something my great Nan would boil up) and Mark had the Fried Chicken with Okra and cornbread. All in all pretty good. So ended our day in the Mardi Gras town...not really somewhere that Mark and I would visit again but nice to have experienced.

Anne Rice's Home

Old Paddle Wheeler

John Goodman's Home